NLC pledges more talks with waste dump opponents

Michael Coggan
ABC News Online

The Northern Land Council says people involved in a legal dispute over a site earmarked for the construction of a nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory will be consulted about plans to nominate a second site.

The NLC says about 60 people attended a formal meeting yesterday to discuss the nomination of a second site at Muckaty Station, north of Tennant Creek.

Lawyer Elizabeth O'Shea, who is representing the people challenging the first site, says her clients were shut out of the meeting.

An NLC spokeswoman says Ms O'Shea's clients will be consulted in a separate meeting that was arranged prior to yesterday's meeting at Muckaty Station.

Ms O'Shea says traditional owners who did attend that meeting said they were not shown a map of where the proposed second site might be.

She says the NLC must say what it plans to do to overcome the clear division that exists over the first site, which will persist in any additional nomination.

"If families don't agree about what should happen on the land, what's the NLC going to do?" she asked.

The nomination of the first proposed site on Muckaty Station is being challenged in the Federal Court.


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